Migration solution exists, EPP and Socialists don’t want it – Cassola

Green party candidate Arnold Cassola has denounced the main parties in the European Parliament which have not included a reform of the controversial Dublin Regulation in their political manifestos.

Cassola was reacting to claims by incumbent Labour MEP Marlene Mizzi who said that despite an increase of €15 million in some €80 million migration funds for Malta, “nothing concrete” was yet forthcoming in aid for the migratory influx from North Africa.

“It’s true that money alone does not solve Malta’s most pressing migration problems, but a solution does exist and it is the European Socialists and the European People’s Party that are refusing to implement it.

“While we European Greens have clearly in our manifesto that we have to get rid of the current rules of the Dublin Regulation, which force refugees to apply for asylum only in the country where they have first entered the EU’, forcing them to stay there, the European Socialists and the EPP have refused to mention the reform of the Dublin Regulation in their respective manifestos, and have limited themselves to the usual empty rhetoric on abstract solidarity,” Cassola said.

“The solution for migrants to be able to move from Malta to other countries is there, but you and your Socialist and Christian Democratic European colleagues are refusing to implement it,” Cassola said in a reference to the MEP.